Supplication
by Rothalion
Summary: Tyson has a very, very bad night, and Elliot receives the brunt of his ire. 1st person POV for Salem. More or less a stream of consciousness for Salem. Warnings for language. It is Salem after all. Rios out of character and a few new O.C's. Not really in my Breath of Evil verse, but some things are present. A sort of departure.


Supplication

Warning: Language, Implied non-con M/M interaction, Rios possibly way out of character

It wasn't something I wanted to do. It went against everything we'd ever talked about as far as what was good for the team, and the team means everything. Bullshit and fuck me twice, if Alice is off limits…what the fuck Rios and who was I kidding?

"Yo, Cappy, can I get another beer over here?"

The op had been a hellish one. I was beat to shit. Nose busted, ribs bruised to damn near broken, took a round skipping off a my left thigh, nicked the muscle so it's sore as hell; just beat to fuck. Rios too, and it's damned hard to damage him. Took me forty stitches to close up the gash in his right forearm in the dark, crouched in a muddy trench, and on top a that I had to hit him with the fucking Adrenalin after he got knocked the fuck out taking a round to the face. Scares the shit outta me when he knocks out; there is no worse feeling than that. I just feel so completely and hopelessly alone. My hands were shaking so damn bad I was afraid I'd fuck up the injection.

"Thanks Cap keep the change."

He's at the house now though, and that's why I'm still just parked on a bar stool in a shit hole, old man bar about three miles away. Been here since they opened at 0900, it's 1300 now. He doesn't know I come in here. So even if he was up and sober enough to track after me he'd never look here. It's a spot for old, gnarled up geezers hiding from their wives of hundreds of years. If Tyse don't do something about that bitch Samantha soon it's a place just like this that he'll be spending his golden years in.

"No Cappy come on I'm just not hungry."

"Eat it Elliot. No food, no more beer. I made it special just for you. It's nice high country Caribou from the mountains in Colorado. Marinated for a week in my special wine sauce with Leeks and Thyme and Mint in a oak barrel. Nice new potatoes on the side with my fancy green beans with cayenne pepper sauce. You need to eat kiddo."

"Fine gimme it. Your as bad as Tyse."

Sayin' his name hurts. I hurt all over. Feel like on top a the op's lumps and bumps like I just got dragged around behind a horse. It just wasn't supposed to be like it was. It's not how or what I wanted, but when has what I wanted ever really mattered. Never. Never since I first got tangled up with the big fucker. Well no never in my fucked up life.

"It's good Cappy, real good. What'd you shoot it with?"

"That Thirty ought six you zeroed for me. Hit him at 350 yards. The scope you hooked me up with was a peach. Dropped him straight down. Guide was all impressed as shit. Told him about you, and he said bring you out next year."

Straight down that's about how I feel. So fucking far down there's nowhere left to drop to. Thing is he's all I have, Tyson. He's all I have so I don't even have anyone to go to, to tell or ask for help or just…fuck me cry to. Can't even go to Gimoaldo with this one. Fuck. That's how fucked up it all is right now. It's god damned good thing he's at my place. If he wasn't I think I'd have packed my shit and disafuckingpeared at first light.

What am I supposed to do go to Murray? Go to Murray and say 'Hey guess what me and Tyse did last night.' God I can't even think it let alone say it. I just, I just keep hearing his voice going round and round in my head and, and it won't stop.

"Damn it kiddo you dumped your beer. Here, no here I got it. Shit boy what's got into you you're as white as a damned ghost. Here it's good now."

"Sorry Cappy I…Just gimme another, and a shot a Stoli."

Spilled my fucking beer. Spilling gets you a beating. Cappy, no he won't beat the shit outta me; he'll probably just kick me a new beer pro bono, but shit my gut's still in a fuckin' knot.

"Here, but promise me Elliot, promise me you won't drive home."

"I walked."

I walked so that my truck wouldn't clue Tyson in to where I was. I'm hiding. I walked and it hurt. It hurt in a way I thought I'd never have to hurt again. I'm strong. I can fight. I can protect my ass, but it hurt to walk to this fucking hole in the wall to drown my pain in a smoke shrouded bar full of old men moaning about how they'd let life slip by. I came here to hide from him, and to hide from myself. I'm hiding from so many things I don't think I'll ever be found. Not by him, or me, or any fucking body. I'm too damn scared to be found.

Guess what we, no guess what Tyse did to me…there was really no we about it. It wasn't supposed to be like that, it wasn't how I wanted it, envisioned it, needed it to be. So anyway Alice guess what that mean son of a bitch did. He snapped and... you don't want to be on the ass end of Tyse's meanness. I'm a mean bastard, but I'm not cruel mean, and there is a fucking difference. He's calculating. He's…

"Hey Jarek, yea I'm home, and yea beat to shit. It was bad."

"As bad as clawing our way up Monte Cassino? Now that was bad."

"No it wasn't as bad as storming Monte Cassino, but yea man it was bad."

"Cappy, a shot for the lad on me. Stoli 's Stoli good, Hal? Cappy, Hal stormed Monte Cassino hurry it up son he's parched."

"Thanks Jarek, sure a shot a Stoli'd be great. How's Inga?"

"Inga, Inga, enough of Inga. I need a new, spry woman. Drink up. To us the warriors, and to the warriors lost."

"To us the warriors, and the warriors lost."

Jarek, the old Pole is a relic. He calls me Hal, because when they were clawing their way up the slopes of Monte Cassino they'd read Shakespeare at night in the trenches, and Henry the Fifth was his hero. He was there in Italy in May 1944 when the Poles broke the Gustav line, and opened the way to Rome. He was a warrior, and I had no business complaining about anything. Inga, he loved her more than life itself, and he'd never leave or hurt her. How do you find that? How do you find that kind of commitment. I thought I had but…

"Here's a new beer on the house, kiddo. No worries over the spill, Elliot, ok? What's up you ain't yourself, and I'm a good listener."

"Nothing just a bad night."

Tyse is a pull the wings off a fly mean. He has a cruel switch. I'm not that way. You come at me, and sure I will tear you to pieces, or die trying. I had to be to survive all the shit in my life, but Tyse he's a different animal, and that fucking Marcus Ferrell and the School of the Americas just taught him how to do it better.

Damn I keep getting a chill, and it's not cold in here. It's fucking nerves. I'm so on edge it's insane. I need to get a grip, and just put the whole thing behind me, and go home, and just face him and…

"Skippy it's you! How's it hanging you young fucker. Gone again you were, and yup I see you got the shit beat out of you again. Fuck Skippy; seriously I can get you on with us. The Union's not strong, but it's clean work, and no fuckin body will be shooting at your skinny ass. Just keep your feet on the beam, and it's all golden. Cappy get my man a beer."

"Have a beer Bruno, but ok Cappy sure rack it up. Thanks again Bruno, but no I can't, I can't just leave Tyse twisting in the wind. So no thanks."

"Sucks for us. You'd make a great Iron Worker, fuck you're fucking fearless, Skippy."

Fearless? Right fearless Elliot Salem, but last night I was shaking so fucking bad I damn near couldn't stand up. That's how people like Tyse, trained like Tyse get you. They know just which buttons to push, what words to say, how to hurt you so you crumble. Fearless. I thought I was too, but not so much anymore. The only thing I'm afraid of, truly afraid of is dying, and leaving his six wide open. I have his six, and he has mine. Had, has, it's all so fucked up now. I've seen him work on men before, break them down, get the intell, destroy them bit by bloody bit; it's terrifying to love somebody capable of that. And yea, I love the big bastard, but last night should not have happened, not the way it went down.

"Cappy, can I have some Pretzels please."

He's just looking at me. He knows I'm more fucked up than my regular after op fucked up. I need to tell somebody. I need somebody to explain it all away. Cap slides the bowl of Pretzel sticks to me, and leans on the bar. His elbows are wrinkled and calloused from years of doing just what he's doing now. Leaning into a man's world, and listening. He has penetrating blue eyes, and I know I can just blurt it out. I know I can, and he'll listen. He'll listen, and then he'll share a shot with me, and then I'll fall apart 'cause I can't just say it, and not fall apart. But somehow, I can see it in his eyes, I think he already knows. He knows. Maybe it's years of just watching people, maybe it's years of fighting, he's a vet too, side by side with men you grow to love and trust, maybe it's his knowledge that no matter how much you love them, and idolize them, and trust them they are still flawed, and can fuck up, fuck you up.

"I'm here kiddo." He says reaching out, and squeezing my right shoulder.

I look away. I'm ashamed, and lost and alone despite his offer of comfort. Shame…is it shame? Again Tyse's voice echo's round my memory. For somebody who can repress just about anything bad I also have such vivid recall of the bad stuff that it's devastating. Cappy moves away, and I see myself in the filthy cigar stained mirror behind the bar. It's a twisted image; cracked and blurry and mired in grime. Is that me? It will be. I need to face this. I need to wipe away the film clouding my image, and move on. All at once the memory of last night storms my consciousness, and the bar slips away, and I'm back in last night. It's nearly a flashback, and I know I can't stop it.

I was just sitting trying to heal up. I was just resting. It was the second night after we got home. We always spend the first together. We lick each other's wounds, and just decompress. Samantha hates it. Always has. It's led to more fights between them than I can count. So I'm just sitting staring at the wall listening to quiet music, and there's this pounding at my door. It's Tyse. I know it's Tyse. Nobody else would pound like that. I open it, and he's drunk. Real drunk. He's leaning against the door frame, and his eyes are wild, and full of the look I recognize as the meanness, the cruelness. Problem is there's no reason for the meanness in my house. I quick do a recall. What did I fuck up? Nothing.

"Cappy…"

"Kiddo you don't look so good."

"I'm ok."

It's a weak lie, and he knows it. I'm sweating my balls off, and my heart is racing, and he's a smart man.

"'Nother beer please." It comes out hoarse barely a whisper.

"Sure."

He brings it, and just steps back. He leans against the counter opposite me, and just watches.

Tyse, I let him in and he's just railing about how Samantha pitched a fit that we'd spent the night before together. It's an old story, but he's just so out of control. After a bit he finally just crashes on my couch. I'm relieved, and head to take a shower. Typically once Tyse is out like that he stays down.

"Kiddo you're scaring me."

Cappy snaps me back, and I realize that now I am flanked by Jarek and Bruno as well. Am I really that obviously fucked up right now? I try and focus on Cappy, but he's all a blur.

"Cap give him something stiff, Cap. He's slippin' in and out. Seen it before; boys in the trenches, come on Cap hit him with a shot. Worse case he falls over."

"Seen it too Cappy guys they just freeze, and you gotta smack them a shot 'cross the knuckles to get them to loosen up. Don't want to hurt the boy. He's busted up enough. Try the Brandy."

Their voices are far away drifting in and out and around my head like when the wind blows through tree branches in the winter. Or how a shot from my Fifty echoes round the walls of a canyon.

"Tyse hurt me."

It's blurted out. It's shot from my mouth like projectile vomit, and the fact that it happened slams me back to reality. I'm suddenly shaking. Cappy shoves a shot of Brandy at me, and Jarek helps me hold the glass to my lips. I'm shaking too hard to do it alone. The drink hits my gut like a ball of fire, and I collapse in on myself. My shoulders slump, my head hangs, and slow tears fall from my eyes.

"He's hurt you before." Cappy says so quietly I'm not certain I am really hearing it.

"Not like this."

I feel all three of them withdraw a bit from me. I don't need to elaborate they know. They know, and I know I need to face it. Jarek drives the realization home.

"Hal, there's a demon in us all. There's a demon in us all, and sometimes it shows its ugly, cruel ass. Stand up to it, Hal. He's your Rios, and he's gonna be hurtin too, Hal."

For a time I just sit listening to the prattle of the place. It smells of old cigarettes and cigars. It smells of year after year of spilled beer and liquor. It smells like men unwashed after a long day's work or awash in cologne in hopes of getting fucked. It just smells and smells are a powerful memory trigger.

Tyse crashed, and I went to shower. My soap smells like Sandalwood. It's soothing to me so I use it. Call me a silly fucking fool, but it works. I have it in a incense too. The water was just the way I like it, and felt great beating down on my battered ribs and shoulders. I'd lugged a seventy-five pound pack for a week, and I pay for the kinda shit. He'd made me anxious. He wasn't regular. The water was calming. I rested my forehead against the wall under the shower head, and let the water beat down on the back of my neck and shoulders. The tile was cool compared to the water, and felt good. I never heard him come in. I never heard the door open. I never heard the shower curtain slip back. I…

Then he was right on my six. All 295 pounds of him. I'm big. Not big like Tyse and the guys, but I'm no small fucker, but Tyse he's just huge, and once he was behind me I was trapped. I was cornered, and I was scared.

"Gonna be ok kiddo? Had us scared a bit you did."

"Beer, Cappy. Gonna work it out. Just gotta fuckin' work it through, right. Not like I'm chargin' a MMG. Right."

"Or up Monte Cassino. You know how many a my buddies I left back on that hill in Italy Hal?"

"A thousand."

What right did I have to be so cowardly about losing one fucking asshole of a friend who'd fucking hurt me. Hurt me not once, but many times. No maybe nothing like last night, but I've had my ass handed to me by Rios more times than I can count. Sometimes yea maybe I earned, but sometimes fucking no. I Slip back to the night's shit while Jarek recites the Polish anthem from Monte Cassino in a loud, roiling baritone voice.

_The red poppies on Monte Cassino_

_Drank Polish blood instead of dew..._

_O'er the poppies the soldiers did go_

_'Mid death, and to their anger stayed true!_

_Years will come and ages will go,_

_Enshrining their strivings and their toil!..._

_And the poppies on Monte Cassino_

_Will be redder for Poles' blood in their soil._

I've heard it dozens upon dozens of times. Tyse's voice deep and cold washes it away. His hands are on my shoulders. I try to turn, but he holds me firm against the wall. When I try to force the issue he leans in closer, and presses his right hand into the back of my head forcing it back into the tile wall. I've seen him work on men, and I know what he's capable of. Just I can't fucking, can't believe he's playing the game with me. His voice is so crystal clear in my memory I just shudder.

"Scared Elliot?"

I see my eyes in the filthy mirror. They're the eyes of a man in shock. Fucking shock. I am in fucking shock.

"Tyse, what's going on here?"

It's all recorded in my head. Every little tiny minute detail. I smell his sweat, it's a familiar usually safe smell. I smell the alcohol on his breath, another typically familiar and safe smell. What's bad is I know him. I know him, and I know he can smell my fear. He can smell my terror. He just laughs. A deep resonate laugh from down somewhere in his huge chest; a laugh I have worked so fucking hard for so many years to draw outta him. But it hurts to hear it now. Now when I know the cruel switch has been flipped. My heart is breaking. It's broken. I didn't want this, not like this. Not this way, and I know I can't stop it. I know I can't fight him. I know because I've been on the shit end of torture before, and I know when I'm beat.

"Your hips…"

I feel his huge hands on my hips. His thumbs are running up and down my ass, kneading my buttocks, and his fingers are dancing along my hip bones like when you tap at the keys of a piano in a scale. Index, middle, ring, pinkie; over and over.

"I love your fucking hips."

"Tyse."

"Playin' fuckin' Mozart on your hips."

I can still feel his breath on the back of my neck, and wonder if I'd really fought him if he'd a killed me. Jarek's still singing_, '__The red poppies on Monte Cassino'_ Where's my life gone? I'm parked in a bar full of old men wondering where their lives have led them. But where has mine gone?

Then he said it. Just said it. Just like it was a matter of fact, and it made me furious. Made me terrified. Don't think I've ever felt so helpless in my life.

"Gonna fuck you Salem."

That was it. Just a cold blatant statement. That's not how the shit should ever have gone down. I could feel him pressing in against me. His hands wandered up, and cupped my breasts. On a man are they breasts, my pecs, and toyed, and flicked at my nipples. He nuzzled in against the side of my neck, and I could feel that he'd not shaved. His stubble was coarse, and hurt the scrapes along that side of my face.

'_Drank Polish blood instead of dew.' _Jarek's voice was getting louder and clearer and I wish it would drown out the fucking nightmare playing out in my head. Cappy's just leaning and staring. He's given up on trying to bring me back I think. 'Oh fucking well Elliot, just let the shit play out, maybe if you do,' I tell myself, 'it will give me some fucking clue how to fix it.'

"Are you scared Salem? You're fucking shakin' like a virgin on prom night."

"Tyse, let's just talk this through, Tyse."

His answer was to put his right hand over my mouth, and yank my head back. It hurt. He was putting pressure on my nose, and my nose was broken. I flinched, and he drove forward with his left shoulder crushing me into the wall.

"She won't fuck me 'cause a you. She won't fuck me 'cause she thinks we fuck."

"Tyse you're…"

"Gonna hurt a lot more before I'm through."

'_O'er the poppies the soldiers did go' _Cappy slid me another beer, but I'm afraid to pick the damned thing up. Hands are shaking so much. I can't breathe, can't believe this is, has happened. Army of Two. Army of one destroying his best friend, destroying the team, destroying everything I've bleed and fought and sacrificed for, and I want to be angry, but I can only feel fear and grief. A deep deadly, heart wrenching grief.

He knows, knew, I knew what was coming, and maybe that's the thing that fucking rips me apart the most. Tyse knew. Tyse knew I've been down this road before. He knew I knew exactly what it was gonna feel like when he tore into me. He's dragged me free a the nightmares, he's seen me curled up in a corner shaking and lost and driven nearly insane by the terror the flashbacks bring. He knew. He knew, and he used it against me. Just like if I was a fucking captive he was breaking down for fucking Ferrell.

"Tyse I know, but it doesn't have to Tyse; let's just slow down I'll do…"

'_'Mid death, and to their anger stayed true!' _Jarek's still singing. Cappy comes round the bar, and drags him off to a booth. It's a good thing too it was grating on me, and I don't have a fuck of a lot of patience left.

"Sorry kiddo he means well."

"Have you fucked her Salem?"

"No Tyse. Never, I'd never."

He was grinding against me. I was panicking.

"Go ahead Salem fight me. Please, you little sorry assed little bitch fight me. Make it easier go ahead."

"There's no fight Tyse. Just, just back off, we can talk; it doesn't need to be like this. I can do things…"

"Tell me how fuckin' scared you are Salem."

"Scared Tyse. Know what's comin', and yea I'm scared…don't want it like this. Shouldn't be like this; not between us Tyse, please…"

It didn't end quickly. He was drunk…he was drunk, and it…it just took time. I was a battered mess. He'd driven me into the wall, bruising my bruises, screaming at me hateful painful stuff that still just on replay in my head. He destroyed me. He ripped me apart and reveled in my destruction. He was lost to me. He was anything, but my Rios, and when he finally staggered away, laughing, I collapsed into the bloody ice cold water swirling down the tub's drain.

'_Will be redder for Poles' blood in their soil.'_

Jarek's song was erased by the sound of Tyse's voice screaming in my pounding head. He was laughing. Laughing hard. And he just looked down at me…he just stood, and looked down at me his face a twisted mask of disgust and hate and disdain and I never want to see that look again. And I was just down there in my tub a crumpled, shaking, terrified and broken mess, and then he spoke. And then he spoke, and crushed me again. Crushed me after I thought that I couldn't be crushed any further.

"Hmph, you really are just a skinny little ass bitch."

"Kiddo?"

"I'm here Cappy."

"I'm here too Elliot. Here, for you. You're looking bad my friend. Wipe your face here's a cool towel."

The towel felt good. Cool but not freezing like the water from the night before. I handed it back to Cappy, and shoved my empty mug his way signaling for a fresh one. He brought it, and leaned on his elbows again.

"Never said nothing before kiddo, but the North Vietnamese had my ass for two years. Did pretty much everything they could to make me sign their bullshit confession. Got busted out finally. Elliot, they can break your body, but they can't break your soul."

"Wasn't a they Cap it was Tyse. He is my soul. Was, is, I don't know… I'm just so lost right now…"

Don't know how long I stayed in the shower. I was terrified he'd go for round two. Nothing has ever terrified me before like he did last night, and that scares me. Am I… what's the word? Irrevocably, Irrevocably broken? I finally crawled out. I was shaking uncontrollably. He was in my bed so sleeping wasn't fucking gonna happen. Couldn't take a hot shower; the water heater was empty. I dressed, and slipped away. And now I'm here. Been here for hours, but times up, and I either have to get my truck, and haul fucking ass, or go home and face the music. Jarek's words popped back into my head. _''Mid death, and to their anger stayed true!' _Was I angry? I was hurt. I'd been angry with him before, but…

The walk home is becoming a fucking nightmare. I hurt now more even than this morning. Sitting all day on a fucking barstool was not a great plan. Half way and I'm thinking that going to a doctor might not be a bad decision. Been bleeding. Been woozy, and I think my floating rib, right side, that was probably fractured, is now broken. Breathing is a bitch. Fuck a doc what would I tell him? 'Yea doc my best friend, my brother, my life, the other half of my heart and soul raped me in a drunken rage. Fix me up.' The situation is so completely hopeless. I've tried a time or two to off myself, and maybe I should try again just harder this time. It's an out. A fucking out. I need an out.

Finally, I'm home. Fucking standing in front of the elevator shaking. His truck's still parked in the spot he's used for as long as I've lived here. I can't do this again. Won't. The call button sticks a bit after I push it; it always has, and the ding startles me. I'm so on edge. The car is here in what seems record time. A lady slips out. I don't know her. I don't care to. She's pretty. I've seen here at the pool, but they don't live in our, do I still have an our? World.

Fifth floor comes up too fast, and when the doors slip open I can't move. It's like being a kid, a small, helpless, defenseless kid all over again. It's walking in the shack my old man and I called home, and handing over the money I scabbed sharking pool, and selling his drugs, and hoping it was enough. It's knowing that it's not, it never seemed to be, and it's knowing the punishment in store for me. It's years of repressed memories sluicing back all at once, and it's too much. I mash the stop button, drop to the floor, drag my knees up to my chest, lay my battered face on my crossed arms, and just rock.

There'd been a time once when I tried. I tried to coax it out of him. He'd ditched that fucking bitch Samantha, and I tried to make my play. Made my fucking play. He laughed me off though. 'That dog don't hunt' he'd said. Never forget it either. It fucking hurt too much, so much. The rejection. The rejection, his rejection slammed a door on my feelings, feelings that I'd never figured to ever have, feelings I'd cherished. But he killed them. I just smiled, and played the silly Salem, but it hurt. I'd have given him everything, anything. He didn't have to take it from me. All he had to do is ask.

Control. Can't just hide in the elevator all night. Thirty more feet to my apartment, and my heart's pounding. I actually feel dizzy. Hell maybe my heart will just fucking explode, and save me the trouble of confronting him. The key is a problem. My hands are shaking so hard I can't get it in the little hole. Finally I get the knob, and then the dead bolt. Fuck I don't shake like this breaking into top secret facilities in enemy countries. What the fuck's wrong with me? It also surprises me that I actually locked it. But, then again, I've had his six for so long it's just second nature to protect him.

I push the door open, but wait in the hall. For what I don't have a fucking clue. Can't hide out there forever so…

The hall is maybe ten feet long. The place is dark and silent. I wish I had some NVG's. Do I, should I call out to him? Should I just try, half-drunk as I am to just sneak in, and find a hidey hole until the morning. I know he's here. I can feel him. I can sense his presence. Why won't he say something? How much booze was here when I bailed in the morning. His truck hasn't moved. I know that for a fact so is he still drunk is he still in cruel mod

Three steps more, and I'll be in the living room. Two steps, one, and I reach for the light switch.

"Elliot."

His voice freezes me in place. He's hurting, and my heart breaks. I'm hurting, but it's not the same. I hurt a hundred times more when Tyse is hurting. He sounds so broken. He sounds as broken as, more broken than I am, and I can't allow that. Part of me hoped he'd not even remember what he'd done. Part of me hoped I'd just bear that burden alone.

"Ty…Tyse?"

Scared; there's no other way to put it. I'm scared. Before I can flip on the overhead ceiling light he turns on the chair side lamp. The click, click of the little knob is deafening.

"Come here."

It's an order, and I slog toward him before my head can really argue the point. He sits up in the recliner, closing the foot rest in just as I get there. He looks horrible. Looks like he's died ten times, and been dragged back to be killed ten more, and I can't stand to see him so hurt.

"s'ok Tyse. Ain't nothin' that I ain't been through before. S'ok."

And then it all just clicks into place. All the old excuses and all the old admonitions; all the self-hate and self-betrayal. It was all my fault. If I had just _made_ him go straight home after all those ops, home to Samantha, and not home to me, home with me so we could have each other while the adrenalin burned off, and we tried to become human again, tried to bury the fear and pain and death we'd felt and delivered, tried to wash away the blood; none of this would have happened.

"S'my fault."

I sound so small. So amazingly small. Like a tiny frightened bird needing it's mother yet too afraid to squawk too loud for fear of drawing a predator. Oh fuck he's on me. All in one smooth flowing motion. All in such a subtle flow of mass it's not describable. He's right in front of me, and I want to back away. I want to run but…

He's crying. Wracking sobs. Gasping, choking sobs. I've never even seen him cry. He sees that I'm afraid of him, and holds his hands out in supplication, dropping to his knees. I know that word so I can fucking use it. I had its meaning scorched into my fucking mind. The memory rocks me that much more, and I can hear our captor screaming it out. 'You will kneel in supplication to me, you will tell me your mission, or I will rape your little skinny ass bitch of a partner over and over and over until he bleeds out.' Supplication. Tyse knelt. He knelt, he sang like a bird, and the fucker did it anyway. Not to the extent he'd threatened but…Supplication…

Exhaustion's a funny thing. You feel it, you know you're there, but sometimes you just crash. I crashed. I crashed, and he caught me. Just like he'd done so many times in our fucked up lives he caught me, and he crushed me in his arms. It hurt so much I snapped back. I snapped back, and fought him. Confusion's a funny thing as well. I was confused, and I was still afraid of him.

"Elliot, Elliot no be still. It's ok, not gonna hurt you, it's ok, shh Elliot be still."

I settled finally, and he was just holding me. He's so much bigger than me. He swallows me up. He's sitting with his back against the sofa, and I'm curled up small in a ball and he's got me in his huge arms. Don't know how we ended up there. He's just rocking me. I let him. He's still crying, his tears drip down my cheeks. There's snot in my hair. I'm clawing into his arm, and then I realize it's his hurt arm, the arm I'd stitched up. I pull away and try to get up. He holds me tight.

"Gonna get you to bed, Elliot. We're gonna get through this."

"Hurt me."

God where's my fucking voice?

"Yea, I did."

Then, he just picks me up in his arms, and heads for the bathroom. It's a good thing because I'm done for. He bathes me. The water's warm now and the drains running clear. He dries me off, dresses me in soft comfortable clothes, and gets me into bed. Then after a bit he's here again. Crawling under the comforter. He scares me though, and I try not to tense up to pull away. Don't want to hurt him. Too tired though, and when he pulls me into his arms I want to let him, but the pain of last night is still fresh and raw and I'm scared. He shushes me, and pulls that much harder dragging me into the warm curve of his body, embracing my narrow shoulders in his huge arms. We've slept together more times than I know. For warmth, for lack of room, just because we needed to feel another person's arms round each other for sanity's sake. It gets lonely when you spend you days killing. It gets lonely when no one understands your plight. So this holding, it's nothing sexual. It's nothing obscene or forbidden. It's nothing dirty or shameful. It's who we were until last night shattered that innocence. The familiarity of being so close to him gives me back my voice, and I play our old game. His old game really.

"Yo, Tyse?"

"Elliot?"

"I want…I want you to know…I want you to know that I…I…"

"I love you too Elliot."

It wasn't something I wanted to do. Thought I wanted to do. No, not true really, because I'd tried once but… It was a lie thinking I didn't want to, and I'd harbored, and suppressed that lie for so many years. It was a wall, is a wall between us. But it's done now. It's done now, and if it gets Tyse away from that witch I'd suffer it again a thousand times over. It wasn't something I wanted to do; well not the way it went down but... Supplication. I know that word, and maybe, just maybe was the best solution.


End file.
